


It Says You Really Need Glasses

by Lunaraen



Category: MCSM, Minecraft Story Mode
Genre: F/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 07:02:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18026999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaraen/pseuds/Lunaraen
Summary: It feels like a good day to mess with Ellegaard and whatever ridiculously genius invention she's tinkering with.(He's wrong.Today's going to suck, but he doesn't know that yet. He's as oblivious as ever, and frankly wouldn't know a bad omen if it were staring him in the face.In hindsight, the way Ellegaard's ready for him should be the biggest red flag.)





	It Says You Really Need Glasses

There's a spring in Magnus's step, barely half a pause in his stride at the workshop door before he lets himself in, whistling. Ellegaard gave up trying to change the code a while ago. Traps are more of a griefer thing, and while it would spice things up, his feet don't snag on any trapwires, finding none.

The only gears he can hear turning, the only pipes groaning, are far from the door, making it unlikely for any pistons to try and crush him at the entrance.

Typically, Ellie likes it when her friends visit her lab. Magnus just happens to be a special exception, though he figures she'll at least be glad to know he doesn't have any extra gunpowder on him. A little, maybe, but not enough to mess up anything big.

Not that he would mind getting creative.

It feels like a good day to mess with Ellegaard and whatever ridiculously genius invention she's tinkering with.

(He's wrong.

Today's going to suck, but he doesn't know that yet. He's as oblivious as ever, and frankly wouldn't know a bad omen if it were staring him in the face.

In hindsight, the way Ellegaard's ready for him should be the biggest red flag.)

"Oh, Magnus, there you are." And in fairness, it does put him on edge, nonchalant as she sounds. It's almost as if she was planning to hunt him down instead.

"Hey Ellie, what's up?"

"Just a little test of mine. What does this say?" In a few swift motions too many, she’s guided him to a simple chair, all but pushed him down into it, put some kind of metal sign in his lap, and already has a hand on his shoulder to stop him when he begins to lift the sign. "Ah-ah, no cheating. Don't hold it up- or look any closer."

"Seriously? It's a cruddy experiment if all I have to do to wreck it is _move my head_." Admittedly, there's still something tantalizing about that, about potentially dipping his head just enough to mess with whatever enchantment she's working with, because it might not be explosive but it would make her so mad and man does it sound fun. He's well within brawling distance, however, and Ellie might not be Gabe but she still packs a mean punch that he's not up to feeling right now. Magnus squints down at the sign, tilting it just a little from side to side, but the symbols she insists are letters stay blurry and non-distinct. It's not surprising. He hopes she'll figure her experiment's the broken part. "Alright, alright, what's it say?"

"It says you really need glasses."

 _Dammit_.

The words could be teasing, but they don't sound that way, sharp and steady, and hearing it feels like a slap to the face. That's not how this works. That's not how their banter's supposed to go, or how they usually talk to each other.

She's being serious about this, and it can't mean anything good.

Especially when things don't add up.

The letters are too big for that, would need to be smaller to take up the same amount of space on the sign for a message like that, and he feels as indignant as he does relieved. It's a joke?

"What- hey, no it doesn't. It's not long enough for that."

That... is probably not the right thing to say, joke or not. Never mind that Ellie's got a brain faster than anyone he knows, moving a million meters a minute, and that she already has him figured out; people don't read based on length and context and half-hopes.

They just read.

"It might as well say that." Her voice stays serious and his stomach begins tying itself in knots. "Magnus, you're supposed to be able to read this from _meters_ away. It says something to me, at least, that you can't even read it when it's in your lap."

"Real funny, Ellie." Everything says something to her. She looks into too much, overthinks everything he never would. Magnus is still probably the more curious of the two of them, or at least the more impulsive one, and even when he feels sick the curiosity’s just a bit too much to ignore. "...so what's it supposed to say?"

"'Shock hazard'." His stomach starts feeling like lit dynamite, and his heart seizes like it too. "That's what it really says, Magnus, not what it's 'meant' to be."

"You didn't include the symbol. Is that even the right color? That's cheating."

(It's green. It absolutely isn't the right color for an electric warning sign and this isn't one of her experiments, it's just another way for her to humiliate him and make him feel small and Magnus hates it.)

"You shouldn't have to try and understand signs through squinting at symbols and hoping you're right because of context. Ivor and I are worried about you."

Oh, and Ivor's in on this because of course he is.

Magnus thinks of the itching powder tucked away in his room and of the easily-accessible drawer of robes in Ivor's.

Good to know.

"I got this far without having to worry about it, didn't I?" It would be easy to get up and just slip out the doors, Magnus faster than Ellegaard and better at getting out of sight, but he's never been one to back down from an argument. Especially not with her. The last thing he needs now is her having even more than his eyesight to lord over him. "Didn't you say I was no good at reading? Lost cause and all? I don't need to read to set off explosives or dodge stuff."

Magnus waits for Ivor to chime in from somewhere, step out from behind one of the larger inventions or just waltz right through the entrance and start lecturing him too, but it doesn't happen.

There aren't any footsteps to hear, the doors don't slide open, and there's no argument about what he can or can't read.

Ivor, patient as he is admirably sneaky, wouldn't let that lie. He's not here.

Ellegaard doesn't have the same absence stopping her, and the way her voice softens feels more weaponized than it should.

"You _can_ read, Magnus. You're admittedly a slow reader, but you're not illiterate, and I imagine hardly being able to see the words is the bigger problem. _You_ were the one who mentioned letters getting jumbled."

She 'imagines'. Like she hasn't thought about this way more than even he has, doesn't have him outsmarted at every turn and twist. He bets she's planned the whole thing out, and bets even more that he's been going right along with the script whether he likes it or not.

And fair enough, admitting his little letter problem was his fault, a little quirk that even most people who needed glasses didn't seem to have.

It doesn't keep him from scoffing, shrugging as he hands her back her sign before picking at one of his gloves, picking at a tear that had started as just a worn spot.

He really ought to start sewing that up before it becomes a problem. Maybe's it's just time for new gloves.

"Believe it or not, if I wanted to be diagnosed with 'stupid', I'd go to Ivor."

Ellegaard nudges his shoulder with her elbow.

(Ivor would maybe think it, would grumble it with other snarky comments, but he'd never say as much seriously, to him or the rest of them. Ellegaard's better at insults, at saying what she means.)

"You're not stupid. Dyslexia makes it harder to read even when your vision's technically perfect."

He's heard the term before, though not often.

There's a name, which means there's information, which means she's absolutely got him cornered on _two_ conditions he knows little to nothing about.

"Ah, great, I'm double-fucked then." She flinches, whole body jerking while her fingers dig into the wooden back of the chair and make it creak, and he knows he's right. "Most people would take that as a sign that I'm not meant for reading."

"We can help."

"This is help?" Maybe she just doesn't see it the way he does. She's never been great with people, but she's too brilliant to not read him like a book, to know he hates every little part of this. He doesn't like feeling small, feeling cornered, and he's so ready to get out of this chair. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need you broadcasting my weak-spots to everybody like that. I don't need you to teach me to read, or whatever scheme you have for unjumbling words."

"Magnus."

He pauses as he stands up, knowing he probably shouldn't wait before she can convince him with some brilliant bullshit, but he pauses all the same. He makes a show of it, humming to himself before yawning, stretching his back while it's still to her.

"Look, Ellie-"

And he freezes.

And the whine about how he doesn't need glasses dies on his lips, but his head's already turned to her and _wow_.

There's some sort of bias, he's sure, about how she's the first person he sees clearly, the first person in way too long and maybe ever because everything's not blurry for once, but _damn_.

He's seen her before, plenty, and for all her teasing and concern, he's not blind.

But he can _count_ the scratches on her goggles, worn as the pair is getting, and the threads fraying from the more burned part of her right glove, by the wrist.

And Magnus wants to. He wants to figure out and spot all the little things he's never been able to see well enough and just count them because he can, but that would require keeping the glasses on and proving Ellie right.

She’s smiling like he’s making her happy, smiling like there’s pure redstone running in her veins and like he put it there, rather than it just being because she’s right again, and he wants to do whatever he can to keep that smile as bright and warm as it is. She cares so much, about him, and there’s a sappy thought lingering in his mind about her getting him to fall in love with her all over again.

Part of whatever would involve keeping the glasses, though, and he has way too many internal problems to even try untangling them here and now.

Still, that's a level of detail he never imagined having.

(Maybe he doesn't need glasses, but he can definitely see the use to them. He never realized he was missing this much. (The vainer side of him wants a mirror, because what does he look like with all the sharp edges and vivid details?))

He's not keeping them, of course. He's probably spent too much time as it is looking like he's had his mind blown, and Magnus just hopes he can play it off as being dazed. It shouldn't be too hard; he's already starting to get a splitting headache as clear as his vision.

Ellegaard's mouth hangs open when he pulls the glasses off and hands them back to her.

(He wants to snatch the glasses back just so he can better appreciate and laugh at _that_ look, but he's got his own image to defend.)

"Welp, that was interesting. Was it supposed to do something?"

"But Magnus-"

"But nothing. There ain't any point in keeping crap like that on my face when it doesn't do me a bit of good."

Ellegaard doesn't chase after him when he leaves, and with any luck she's not totally onto him.

It's hard to say, for obvious reasons, but as he leaves, the glance he sneaks pretty heavily suggests she thinks the glasses might just be broken, twisting them in her hands and muttering to herself.

Maybe she just wishes she was wringing his neck instead.

(She'll find out eventually, he knows, and she'll be livid when she does, maybe even enough to skin him alive, but he'd like to try and keep it between him and Ivor for now. Glasses are too big a weakness, too easy to spot and exploit and too much of a liability for a griefer, but contacts?

Contacts sound doable.

And with Ivor pretty much the team healer, being open about it with him's probably the most painless course of action.

It'll also annoy Ellie beyond all belief eventually, so there are a couple of good reasons.)

* * *

 

Contacts work great.

For the first few years, before and then right after the Dragon.

After that, though, after the fanfare dies down and Soren makes it clear there aren't going to be any more adventures, Magnus takes the fighting up a notch.

By hiding.

In his tower, watching over his city of chaos like a mastermind.

Or a prisoner.

Really, he's a coward, too stubborn to give up his title and too tired to step back into the public eye. They're all desperate for a piece of him, his title and what it means, and every single one of those hungry eyes has an advantage over either of his.

It's not exactly like he can go shopping for contacts in a city of griefers.

(He's not dumb enough to re-use the ones he had, and even in his more desperate moments it’s too late, each pair having long since been tossed into the lava.)

 _Damn him_.

He should've taken the glasses when he had the chance, or when the group started drifting apart. Should've taken them from where he knew Ivor left them, one of the few things abandoned on Ivor's desk when he cleared out and left (got kicked out), or gone and gotten himself a brand new pair. Outdated by now or not, they'd be better than nothing.

Lava's bright enough, standing out sharply in contrast to the inky obsidian, that he hardly has to worry about just accidentally stepping into it. The rest of the traps are better hidden, but they're all his and he knows them by heart.

He's had enough time holed up in his tower to make sure of that.

As it turns out, it's not enough time to fully make Magnus rusty at fighting, and when he finally does get to give everyone a show? Well, he kills it until he almost gets himself killed, too slow and too cocky and too perfectly set up for Jesse to take down.

That would smart more if his city wasn't in shredded, bedrock pocked pieces.

But he fights against mobs fine, and that's enough. He doesn't find Soren on his own, spends too much time stumbling through Soren's fortress and squinting at stupidly small scrawls on signs, and that's enough too.

When he chickens out from dropping the F-Bomb, something the (ex)king of the griefers should jump at, it's more than enough. He's a coward, and he'll own it if he has to.

And then Ellegaard sweet-talks Jesse better with fancy words and intentions, gets Jesse to take Ellegaard's armor instead of his, and then Ellie gets herself killed.

Typical, stupidly heroic Ellegaard.

Stupidly brilliant, _dying_ , coughing, wheezing Ellie.

In that moment, Magnus _hates_. Hates recklessly, hates without limits, hates without good reason and with especially excellent reason.

He hates Ivor for this.

He hates them for what they made Ivor do, for pushing him away in the first place.

He hates Soren for not having the bomb ready in time, for not figuring out some way to craft it and keep it from detonating before they wanted it too.

He hates not just shoving his armor onto Jesse like he wanted to.

He hates that he never tried hard enough to get new contacts, or had just given in and take the glasses when she _put them on his head_. He hates he never got new ones. (Since when has he cared about what other people think so badly? What they would do to him? It was _his city_. If anybody could sneak out, or waltz right through it, it should've been him. When did he ever let it get that bad? He could take on anyone who had a problem or thought it made him weaker.)

He hates that Ellie's dying and he can't even see what she really looks like.

Besides the way he feels- small.

(Magnus hasn't seen any of his friends in so long, and he can't really say how _any_ of them look, how the little details have changed.

He knows they have.

Their voices have changed, more weary and beaten than they ever were, and the way they move even with him's too guarded. Ellie, above all else, has been the most bitter, and that's saying something.

For all Magnus knows, Ellie's still been wearing the same old gloves, ones she should've thrown out years ago (ones Jesse's wearing now), or Soren's actually been getting himself some sleep in the End, done something to take care of the circles under his eyes he'd started getting even before they all split up.

Maybe Gabe's not as awful looking as he sounds, as weak and strained as his movements make him out to be.)

It's a selfish desire, but hey, it's what he's good at.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of this fic is inspired by [ this post](http://warning-heckmouth.tumblr.com/post/134194585691/i-just-want-ellegaard-to-sneak-up-on-magnus-and/) by [warning-heckmouth](http://warning-heckmouth.tumblr.com/).


End file.
